Глава 19. Остерегайтесь ловушки убеждений

Многие из нас качаются на волнах верований всех сортов. Мы погружены в здравый смысл и мудрость нашей культуры, традиций, общины, профессии, семьи и друзьей. Так как убеждения очень личны, я рассмотрю их с разных сторон. Надеюсь, хоть один из рассматриваемых аспектов как-то согласуется с вашим опытом, интеллектом и внутренним Я.

При встрече с чем-то сложным и незнакомым как правило, нужно повторение, прежде чем мы почувствуем себя комфортно. Кроме того, повторение часто необходимо, чтобы пробиться сквозь глубоко укоренившиеся способы мышления и бытия. Большинство из нас глубоко принимает и отождествляет способ мышления и бытия, независимо от склада ума. Укоренившееся в нас не даёт выбора, ― оно становится частью невидимого внутреннего ядра существования. Субтильные системы убеждений ограничивают нашу личную реальность. Фактом является и то, что большинство наших убеждений лежат недалеко от пределов досягаемости умом. За пределами нашего сознания они определены буквально, и, следовательно, ограничивают то, что мы позволяем себе воспринимать и интерпретировать как реальность.

Я уверен, что вы ваш мозг может обрабатывать информацию Большой картины без затруднений, однако, потому что ваши внутренние убеждения глубоко укоренились, будет гораздо более трудным успешно интегрировать эту информацию в более глубокие уровни понимания. Найти определенный доступный материал, или концептуально очевидное, или повторять его, не обязательно означает, что материал фактически принят в более глубокие уровни познания.

Интеллектуальное понимание часто мелкое и неполное, потому что у нас нет возможностей, чтобы точно оценить степень нашего невежества. Логическим результатом осознания нашего невежества по отношению к некоторым очень важным вопросам является неудобная тревога ― тревога незнания того, что вам отчаянно нужно знать. Как правило, мы вынуждены твёрдо оценивать проблему, независимо от того, сколько мы знаем или не знаем. Для того, чтобы удостовериться, что наша оценка достаточно твёрдая для значительного уменьшения тревоги, основывающейся на страхах, принесённых нашим невежеством, мы делаем предположения касательно степени, качества и полноты наших знаний, что безвариантно ведёт к интерпретации "неглубокие и неполные" к "достаточные и убедительные". Полученные интеллектуальные суждения, независимо от того насколько необдуманными они будут, покажутся их создателю разумными, а также очевидно правильными.

Do you see how the fear of not knowing thus assuages itself by creating a believable self-satisfying story that provides an alternative to acknowledging and accepting ignorance? That the story may be false is invisible to its author because it is based upon assumptions and beliefs designed to meet the author’s pressing needs for reassurance and security. Have you ever wondered how other people can come to the strangest conclusions about all manner of things?

From religious fanatics to your sometimes exasperating manager or significant other, it works the same way. Be careful that your intellect does not trick you into believing comfortable and seductive conclusions that are primarily designed to reduce your anxiety, reassure your ego, and maintain your current self-satisfying worldview.

Whenever you feel reasonably certain that you are obviously correct even though you have no real data to back it up, you should at least consider the possibility that you may be stuck in a belief trap of your own creation. Only open-minded skepticism will allow you to assess that possibility.

Big Truth must be understood deeply to be effectively applied. Wisdom resides more in the heart and soul than in the intellect. Your intellect can only take you so far in your exploration of Big Truth; it can direct your search but cannot cause you to learn anything of deeper significance. On the other hand, your intellect can cause you to squander every opportunity to know Big Truth.

To focus our discussion of belief traps, let me give you a more precise and clear understanding of what I mean when I use the words “belief” and “knowledge.” Beliefs may be cultural, religious, scientific, or personal. Belief is generated and necessitated by ignorance. If you know for sure, belief is not required. In that case, you have real knowledge. Knowledge is derived from knowing what is true. If your apparent knowledge is false, you only believe that you know. In this situation, belief is masquerading as knowledge. Belief posing as knowledge is pseudo-knowledge, not real knowledge.

• Because many are now wondering how you can tell pseudo-knowledge from knowledge, I think a short aside is in order. Throughout this trilogy, you will find discussions of how to discriminate between the wise and the foolish, between the real and the apparent, between falsehood and truth, between knowledge and pseudo-knowledge (belief). We will approach this issue from several directions over the course of Sections 2 through 6.

This is a pudding thing and a science thing. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating” implies that truth and knowledge can be evaluated by the objective results of their application. Science is the primary tool and process that enables you to avoid belief traps while assessing objective results.

Typically, it boils down to the fact that you need personal experience (knowledge must be applied) and measurable results (you must taste the pudding) to become a discriminating connoisseur of reality. If you are not careful, you can be deluded about the results, as well as the experience. That is why you must be a good scientist in your explorations. Being a good scientist requires only that you have the right approach and attitude – no degree or formal scientific training is required. You must wait until you have collected enough high quality evidential data before converting potential possibilities into actualities or knowledge. These potential possibilities, with their associated probability of being true, must always be reassessed and recalculated as new data come in. Apparent knowledge remains potential and tentative – truth is absolute.

Your list of potential possibilities will, for a very long time, if not always, be a much, much, longer list than your list of absolute truths. If you are careful to remain simultaneously open-minded and skeptical, you will be unlikely to inadvertently make a major investment in false knowledge. On the other hand, you might pursue a hypothesis or potential possibility to a dead end – or to the conclusion that your hypothesis is wrong. That is how good science works. There is no way to guarantee that your hypotheses will be proved correct. Proving a hypothesis wrong also produces useful information.

Always remain skeptical and open-minded so that you won’t wander too far down too many blind alleys. It is those who abandon the open-minded skepticism of the scientist, in pursuit of easy and quick answers, who end up leaping into belief traps.

Basing their decisions and interpretations of events on belief and pseudo-knowledge, they lose their way -- inevitably investing their time and energy moving in non-optimal and unproductive directions. The truth is not delicate; it will stand up to vigorous testing.

However, you must be careful that your tests are valid. This is not as easy as it first appears. The inherent difficulty scientists have in validating concepts and results reflects a standard problem of science. By definition, it is always difficult for you to design tests to evaluate something that you do not understand. Exploring NPMR is in many ways the same as exploring PMR. Research in NPMR requires, more often than not, a long, slow, sometimes frustrating and tedious process to find tentative new knowledge. There, as with serious research anywhere, dogged perseverance, careful analysis and steady effort yields results better and more surely than any other method.

If you repeat your questions about how to separate knowledge from pseudo-knowledge while at the same time pretending that you are talking about the knowledge of PMR instead of the knowledge of NPMR, most of the same obvious answers will apply. Science is science, in both PMR and NPMR. Scientific methodology has the same difficulties and attributes in both “places.” The primary difference is that in NPMR (as viewed from PMR), science is a personal or subjective activity with objective results.

This contrasts with PMR (as viewed from PMR), where science is a directly shareable objective activity that likewise produces objective results. For the record, NPMR science, as viewed from NPMR, is also a directly shareable objective activity that produces objective results.